


Recollecting the Snow

by Linguini



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-26
Updated: 2015-12-26
Packaged: 2018-05-09 14:59:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5544308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linguini/pseuds/Linguini
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After great pain, a formal feeling comes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Recollecting the Snow

**Author's Note:**

> For a creativity night prompt: 15 minutes, no editing.

It’s impossible. He just can’t get warm. Win has humored him as much as he’s willing to ask, and the heating is at a nearly unheard of temperature, and he’s already wearing his two undershirts, a thick shirt and his thickest jumper--not even a cardigan, but a proper over-the-head jumper, bought for him by Win before she knew his preferences. And still his hands shake with it, toes tingling with the cold. He knows, in a way only one who has experienced it can, that some of it is the result of blood loss from… _then_ , but the knowing doesn’t make it any easier to bear the chills racing down his spine.

Win’s in the kitchen, working on something for dinner, presumably, and the children are out...making themselves scarce rather than incur his wrath, he admits. He’s not as young as he once was, and recovering from a potentially fatal gunshot is not as easy, either.

Some of it is the same, though. He’s always found the emotional scars harder to bear than the physical ones. Then, it was the loss of Luisa and Francesca, the horrors of war; now, it’s the memory of standing alone in a cold, empty house but for one foolhardy, unarmed bagman and a foreboding sense of finality.

He’s stopped in his black study by a hand resting on his shoulder, fingers brushing against his neck, and the appearance of a mug of tea in his line of sight. Win drops a kiss to the top of his head, and he can practically hear the _don’t dwell, Fred_ in the gesture. Carefully, she settles next to him, and he notices for the first time that she’s wearing one of his cardigans and has a blanket in her arms that she drapes over his legs and curls under, resting her head on his shoulder as she pushes him to lie back gently against the cushions. He closes his eyes, breathes in the scent of her soap and the beginnings of a roast, and finally, in the soft light of home, begins to thaw.


End file.
